About yachting in Croatia

This summer we had the opportunity of spending nine days on board our friends’ Gianni and Serena’s yacht off Croatia.  When I say yacht I don’t mean a floating gin palace but a modest 11 metre sailing boat.  It’s actually their summer mobile home away from home, somewhat more attractive to me of course than a caravan.

Gianni who is from the mountains and also a ski instructor had always told me that as a mountain lover I would also love yachting.  That may seem paradoxical but it turned out to be quite true.  You have in both cases to adapt to a more modest lifestyle closer to nature.  In the mountains you only have with you what you can carry and you accept with gratitude the modicum of comfort a mountain hut has to offer ;  on a yacht space is at a premium and you have to simplify your daily habits.  In the mountains there are certain technical procedures you have to master and use as second nature ; on a yacht too (should I mention here the special pump action of the on-board toilets).  In the mountains you are in contact with vast open spaces and have to respect the forces of nature ; on a yacht too.  In the mountains you experience a feeling of awe at the scale and beauty of nature and a humility before it ; at sea on a small vessel too. In the mountains working together as a team in this environment gives you a sense of solidarity, camaraderie and freedom ; on a yacht too.

Gianni and Serena are both experienced seafarers. Theirs is an original love-story.  Both had recently broken up from their first marriage. Gianni as a hospital doctor had accumulated a vast amount of overtime he had to take at short notice in November as leave.  Serena having extricated herself from the small business she ran with her former husband wanted some time away.  Both being keen sailors and wanting to realize their dream of crossing the Atlantic on a yacht they signed up for the same three week trip on which all on board had to participate in navigating the sailing boat taking it in turn in watches round the clock. Serena was the only woman on board. That was how they met. If you can survive such an intense close quarter experience, you’re probably off to a good start for living together.  As land came into sight they we’re the only ones sad that it was over.  Back home at different ends of Northern Italy it didn’t take long before Serena moved to Piedmont. Later Gianni stopped working and they bought a small yacht together to sail away for a year and a half from Italy to Greece and Turkey.  Astridos, their present bigger boat is their second.  Suffice it to say that living on a boat is second nature to them.

Before taking up their generous offer to join them on board, there were  three main concerns in my mind.  What would it be like living in close confinement with another couple for a week ?  Would I be seasick ?  Would I fry to death being with nowhere to hide from the sun all around and reverberating off the water ?  Actually none of these fears was founded.

Gianni, Serena, Clara and myself have been on holiday three times together skiing in the Dolomites, staying in self-catering accommodation and spending the whole day outdoors together.  So we know we get along fine, share the daily food related chores without any problem, and have often sat all four of us together on the same chair-lift.  In fact on an 11 metre boat there is plenty of space with a separate cabin for each couple at opposite ends and anyway in a Croatian summer you’re outdoors most of the time, so we never felt on top of each other.

Off the Croatian coast there are one or two chains of islands.  If you sail between these and the mainland you never actually enter the open Adriatic.  The whole time you are on a calm inner sea.  The biggest waves to contend with are when some moron in a high-powered speed-boat unnecessarily cuts across your bows.  Actually an 11 metre boat is big and heavy enough to be pretty stable, it doesn’t rock when you walk up and down it, or do anything else energetic for that matter. So sea-sickness is really not an issue.

Astridos has a very comfortable main area below deck in which you can stand up, so it was possible to retreat inside if necessary during the hottest hours of the day.  Outside she is well equipped with a big and thick canopy over the steering area so that you can stay out of the sun there too.  I actually pursued a policy of no sun-cream, just stay in the shade and managed not to get sun-burned at all, apart from…

The main and most enjoyable activity for me on a Croatian summer holiday is swimming in the warm crystal clear water of the sea.  On a boat you don’t have to walk to the beach, you just go over the side when you feel like it.  The first thing I would do in the morning at 7 or before would be to get out of bed, walk through the boat and go straight into the water for half an hour or more.  Then several times again in the course of the day, as of when we had anchored or moored somewhere.  In fact I was swimming two to three hours a day every day.  Bliss.  Soon, as we settled in and became more relaxed so as not to stand on ceremony, it became clear that swimming costumes were a waste of time as they only slow down drying off.  Moreover, swimming naked is one of life’s great pleasurable sensations.  The only problem is that some parts of us are not so often exposed and therefore rather delicate, so I did get fairly sun-burned on my bum.

Serena and Gianni keep their boat in Monfalcone which is at the northermost point of the Adriatic (indeed of the Mediterranean for that matter) .   From there they sail South along the Croatian coast for two months every summer, until such time in the future when for family reasons they may be freer to take longer and go further.  To get the boat there to begin with they also had to sail it all the way round Italy from Liguria.  Of all the places they have sailed they reckon Croatia is the best.  The coast is really beautiful, there are countless islands, hidden inlets and bays, and plenty of protection from the open sea if needed.  It’s one big playground for yachtsman and in the season there’s plenty of them, including quite a few inexperiended ones on charter boats. Therefore, they prefer to go in June and July and be back for August when it’s too hot and too busy and they can return to the cool and peace of their home in the Alps.  Sounds like a good plan to me. 

This means that when we joined them early in July they were already on their way back up.  I mention this because the predominant winds in the Adriatic blow down from the North.  This was all too well known to the great maritime republic of Venice, the Serenissima, which could deploy its naval forces southwards quickly. However, coming back home means the wind is predominantly against you.  So although we hoisted the sails whenever we could on Astridos, most of the time we made a stately progress under power.  So I can’t claim we were actually ‘sailing’ most of the time, but when we were it was something else.  There is something truly magnificent about being under sail, the sudden silence where the engine noise is replaced by the whoosh and creaking of being driven along by the force of nature. Perfectly on cue, the very first time we hoisted sail, we saw our first dolphins leaping out of the water in the middle distance, it seemed somehow appropriate.

So there wasn’t really enough opportunity to become expert in the finer points of sail management but I was happy to pull on a rope or feed one out when told to.  On the other hand I did take my hand at steering quite a bit, even if Astridos has a modern auto-pilot.  In fact she is superbly equipped with electronic gadgetry displaying at an easy glance, the compass bearing, wind speed, actual speed of the boat and depth of water under the boat (which can vary quite alarmingly off some islands) , plus of course GPS to show you exactly where you are and how you’ve been zigzagging. Steering under sail was the most fun, seeing how much speed you could get up, actually faster than with the engine, by steering more or less into the wind. It would be easy to get interested in the techinical skills and arts of sailing and navigating and I admire those who have mastered them.  I think I admire especially the ability to manœuvre at close quarters, which would certainly have me worried about banging into something and doing irreperable damage.  Needless to say the skilled sailors took over from the novices as soon as things got tricky !

Perhaps I should briefly describe our itinerary, though ultimately it is of secondary importance.  We joined Astridos at a marina in Murter from where we sailed to a fine bay on the island of Zirje and discovered how for the night you can tie up at a specially installed buoy and part with your rubbish to the man who comes in a boat to collect your not exactly modest parking fee.  Our next overnight was for free in a small fjord like estuary south of the more famous Krka one.  From there it was too Prvic Luka off a small port on a typical small Croatian island with neat old villages linked by an attractive path through Mediterranean vegetation.

The highlight for me though was always going to be sailing through the National Park of the Kornati islands, a large arhicpelago of barren round islands with stone walls and grazing sheep, somehow strangely reminiscent of Yorkshire.  This was the way to visit them, leisurely on our peaceful boat with an overnight stay at the park’s marina, instead of being packed onto a day outing boat from one of the ports on the mainland.  Next came the wonderful Telascica Bay with its famous cliffs, every bit as good as their reputation.  Logistics compelled us to spend a night back in civilization at the noisy port of Sali.  Here we decided to stay on an extra two days allowing us to overnight at Mala Rava, one of Gianni and Serena’s favourite spots, and very pretty it was too with the usual excellent swimming.  From there it was to Brgulje from where we could get an early morning ferry to Zadar and a taxi back to our starting point, leaving our friends to continue sedately northwards back to Monfalcone.

As a new experience I found it all quite enthralling and quite in keeping with my temperament.  The mountaineer in me found he relished the similar experience of sailing and the holiday-maker was more than happy to adapt to the slower pace, with time for enjoying the simpler pleasures of life and contemplating the beauty of the surroundings.  All of this of course is wonderful to share with friends.